CC's US managing partner race becomes one-man show
Clifford Chance has found just one partner willing to stand for the top job in its US practice as the American partnership votes on a replacement for former head John Carroll.
New York corporate partner Craig Medwick is the sole partner to have expressed an interest in the Americas managing partner role, vacated last month when former head Carroll announced he was stepping down early to focus on his white collar litigation practice.
Although the election is a mere formality, Medwick issued his manifesto to US partners last Monday (11 April), with votes closing at the end of this week. He will take up the post in time for the 1 May start of the new financial year.
Earlier this year, Medwick - a partner at Rogers & Wells since 1987 - was appointed to managing partner Peter Cornell's five-person US executive group.
Medwick will become the third managing partner of Clifford Chance's Americas region in as many years and will be the first transactional lawyer appointed to the post after a run of three high profile litigators - contentious work was the hallmark of Rogers & Wells.
At the same time, litigation partner Jim Moyle has emerged as the only candidate to take up one of the three American seats on the firm's global partnership counsel, vacated by bankruptcy rainmaker Margot Schonholtz, who quit the firm for Kaye Scholer earlier this year.
